


Lions Inside

by Whis



Series: Lions Inside [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: BAMF Buck, Buck Centric, Dark Buck, M/M, SEAL Buck, non explicit hurt christopher diaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whis/pseuds/Whis
Summary: Story based on a prompt by promptabuddie in TumblrSomeone hurts Chris and everybody expects Eddie to lose it, but Buck is the one that truly scares them.Thanks tonilshkifor all the help, support and being my beta, anddiazevanfor being right there
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Athena Grant, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: Lions Inside [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640596
Comments: 41
Kudos: 498





	Lions Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Tittle and some lyrics from the song Lions Inside by Valley of Wolves

**_If you leave me to my own device_ **

**_I never had to compromise_ **

**_This city's like a jungle gotta make it mine_ **

**_Put my fear right out of sight_ **

  
  


When they get to the hospital, everybody is worried about Eddie and wary of his reactions. Nothing could have prepared them for the sight in front of them. Christopher looks so small in that hospital bed, and the bruises and machines are too big, so much that they seem bigger than him.

How could someone do something like that? To hurt a kid, someone so innocent, pure and vulnerable is always the biggest crime. Buck just can’t fathom out the reason behind the actions that put Chris in this place.

Nobody is shocked when Eddie starts yelling and hitting and kicking, it’s what he does, he is understandably furious, and so it’s everybody else, but they need to keep him calm, at Christopher’s side, away from problems and the guys who did this.

So everybody is trying to hold him and keep him calm and sane, but it seems an impossible task. Hen is the one who wonders why Buck isn’t helping, she is the first one who looks at him.

Buck is leaning on the wall, just looking at Chris. His face is dark, contorted in a mask that seems made of stone and ice, his eyes, that usually speak of love and joy, are just vacant and shallow, the beautiful color blue now looks otherworldly dangerous. 

_ That is not Buck _ , murmurs a voice in her head, and Hen feels chills when he directs that strange look at her and whispers,

“I need to grab something, I’ll be back”

Somehow, Hen knows she won’t see him anytime soon, and for the first time since she met him, she feels relieved.

  
  
  


It was a sunny day, which wasn’t unusual in LA. In fact, it started as a normal day for everybody, including ed the firefighters in Station 118

They have had a few calls, nothing major, just some people being crazy and doing some idiotic things, although, to be fair, sometimes it was just life and fate being bitches.

The thing is, that the most horrible days start as a usual, happy, normal day. This one wasn’t different.

Buck takes a breath and tries to calm himself. He needs to be the collected one if anything else, because this time, it’s Christopher who has been put in a hospital bed, and Eddie is gonna need him, and Chris too, when he gets better, and gets out and…

_ If he does,  _ supplies that voice in his head, always oh, so helpful and positive. It always sounds like his dad, and god, he hates the man, but he is usually right about everything.

Buck feels helpless. Eddie wants to go out and kick those guy’s asses, and man, Buck wants to do the same. But he knows that would be the most stupid thing he could ever do, although that hasn’t stopped him before.

He could do it, better than anybody else he knows, and that includes Eddie. Buck has a set of skills that is unknown to his team , not that he wanted them to find out. 

_ They don’t have to  _ the voice says, and of course, there is a part of him, the one that still loves his dad and everything he taught him, that wants to jump.

He closes his eyes and tries to silence his mind, he needs to keep it together so he breaths in for four seconds, holds the breath for seven seconds, and exhales for eight seconds. It’s supposed to reduce anxiety and anger, and it is helping until Buck opens his eyes and sees his reflection in the window. He has seen that face before, he has seen those eyes and wished he would never have to see them again. But there they are, again, mocking at him with the knowledge that they have already won.

With one last look at the door, Buck turns on his heels and strides out.

  
  
  
  


Athena knows the news won’t be what the 118 team was expecting, least of all Eddie. And even though it breaks her heart, she figures out the guy needs to hear it from a friend… and well, face the fact that he might have been partially responsible for what happened. Well, he is barely responsible, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that those guys wouldn’t have touched Chris if Eddie hadn’t gotten himself into street fighting. 

She wasn’t expecting to see Buck leaving the hospital, in fact, she was sure she would have to drag the kid out so he would get some sleep and food.

“Buck, what are you doing…”

“I need to grab something from the car” he cuts her off, and there is something in the way he is looking at her, cold and calculating, that doesn’t sit well with Athena. 

“Oh, do you need help…”

“I don’t thanks… Any news?”

“Yes, I was going to tell Eddie…”

“Eddie is out of himself right now, you should know that Athena, so tell me.” 

Buck doesn’t ask, he orders, and Athena closes and opens her mouth. Nobody speaks to her like that, she is the Alpha in every situation, she commands any room as soon as she gets into it, and it has been like that all her life. And Buck has always treated her with the same mixture of fear, respect, and awe that almost everybody directs at her. So it’s a surprise to see him treating her like that

“Buck, don’t you dare to speak to me…”

“No ‘Thena, don’t you dare to keep that information from me… You owe me, I could have kept that lawsuit, I could have given them a lot of more information than I did, and you know it, you have run checks on all of us, you know about my past, you know you don’t play with me when I ask you to give me some information.”

She closes her eyes. This was something she had always been afraid of, but she thought she would never have to witness it. This side of Buck is just something she has read, some file and record she had to dig with the help of some friends, with a story she could never get whole because most of it was classified.

“Why do you want that information.”

“I’m not going to insult our intelligence with a story, you know what I’m going to do but you know you can’t  _ know _ , so just give me that information.”

And God help her, but Athena does. Because she had read those files, she knows just some side of the story, enough to push her.

She should have guessed that the Diaz’s would be the catalyst, that if this side of Buck would emerge it would be because and for them, and she couldn’t blame him because the truth is that she would have done the same if Henry or May were the ones in that hospital bed.

As soon as he leaves, Athena makes a call to warn her coworkers, and she hopes that Buck won’t be there on time to screw up his life. She is sure he won’t be there in time

Once in the elevator, Athena wonders if she is a monster for wanting Buck to get there in time and for not feeling bad about those guys. 

They have it coming.

  
  
  
  


Buck knows he has to be fast, the cops are probably on their way.

Thankfully, there is a phone number and Buck still has an untraceable phone, a ritual hard to forget, even when his life is nothing but routine and peaceful.

A call, an anonymous tip, and Buck knows there is no going back.

The team will know the truth, about what he can do, about who he is. He can only hope they will be able to see beyond the bloody dark hell he is about to release.

He takes out the battery from his usual phone, turns on the engine of his jeep and makes a new call. The voice on the other side of the phone is cold and distant, as usual, yet Buck has missed the owner so much that he could cry. But he can’t do that, he can’t allow himself to be weak, vulnerable, emotional, he needs to dig deep within himself until he finds the switch and turns his humanity off. It’s easier than he thought, he only has to remember Christopher, hurt and wounded on that hospital bed.

When he talks, his voice is robotic and cold.

“Father, I’m gonna do something and I’m gonna need your help.”

There is silence on the other side, and any other day, well, five seconds earlier, he would have felt nervous. Now, he waits patiently.

“Copy that.”

  
  
  


The moment Athena arrives at the room, she knows Eddie is not doing much better than Buck. It’s pretty obvious he did put up a fight, trying to chase the men responsible for hurting his son, but at the moment Athena gets there, the fight has abandoned Eddie’s body and the man is done. 

It’s heartbreaking to see and hear Eddie’s sobs of pain, and she is sure if Bobby and Chim weren’t holding him, he would have fallen.

Athena feels like an intruder, and she hates that she is there just to put him into a new hell. 

Bobby is the first one who sees him, as usually happens with them they can feel each other presence- Also, they can read each other pretty well, therefore her husband knows what is happening the moment his gaze lands on hers.

Yet, it’s Hen the first one who speaks, the first one who questions her the moment she sees her, stopping Athena from preparing her speech. She had something ready the moment she got the news and her captain offered her the chance of being the one delivering the news.

Her eyes fall in the unconscious form in the bed. It breaks her heart to see Christopher like that, so small and quiet, bruised and hurt, but it’s even worse when she thinks about the marks and wounds that can’t be seen, those that will make themselves known through nightmares. 

Her mind wanders, and she hates it, but she can’t help to imagine how the kid felt when it happened, how absolutely terrifying had to be for a kid so small, pure and happy like Christopher to have an adult hitting him… And Carla, poor Carla, who fought bravely to protect the little kid, and now… Now they don’t know if she will ever wake up.

Athena tears her gaze from Chris and tries to focus on Eddie, forget everything else, as if this was any other case, as if this wasn’t a man that his husband loves deeply, as if this wasn’t the kid that the boy that her husband and herself love like a son is raising as if he was his own. It doesn’t work, how could it?

“Eddie, we know who did this…” He nods, ready to hear the worst as if that was even possible, “it was people involved in the fighting ring you were involved with… We are about to make a detention now.”

The room falls to silence, tense and uncomfortable. Nobody dares to speak, not until Eddie says something. It takes him a minute, but Athena curses loudly when he does and asks the question she was dreading.

“Where is Buck?”

As if fate were playing a cruel she gets a message that answers that question, just not in the way she is hoping for. Or perhaps she does, she just isn’t ready to accept that.

“The men have escaped… But Eddie, you have nothing to worry about…”

“Where is Buck?” This time it’s Maddie who asks, worry dropping through her words. “Where is my brother? Did you tell him who did this?”

Athena can feel all eyes on her, and it has never been something that she has particularly enjoyed, but it has never made her feel the way it does now. She can only feel shame and guilt.

“Sorry,” is the only thing she can say, and she knows it’s not enough, it can’t be. Everybody is looking at her with a mixture of disbelief, fear and different grades of rage. “I thought he wouldn’t be able to do anything…”

“And he won’t’!!! They are gonna kill him,” Eddie murmurs, and he looks so broken, like an empty, trashed doll.

Maddie laughs. It’s an ugly sound, wet and cruel, so full of rage, disdain. Athena can’t believe that sound is coming from Maddie, who is one of the sweetest people she knows. But well, that is what she thought about Buck, and perhaps, they both are some of the sweetest people in the world, they just have this other side that the policewoman isn’t sure she wants to meet.

“Sorry, sorry… Those guys won’t be able to put one single finger on my brother… He will destroy them, and he will destroy anything in his way… And then… I just hope he is still Buck when he comes back to us.”

“What are you talking about Mad?” Chimney asks her, and he is freaking out, pretty much like everybody in the room. She shakes her head, still with a horrible smile on her face.

“My father is a SEAL Chim, a fucking SEAL, one of the best… And he… He has trained Buck all his life… He started with martial arts when he was around five years old, and he loved it… Then they go on with guns, camping trips, and things I don’t know about, they would spend weeks out during Summer and when they’d come back, Buck would be thinner and hurt, but so happy… He loved it, it was a game for him. Dad didn’t raise a son, he raised a soldier. Buck went to college because Father wanted him to have some other education. He always said Buck would become a myth… Buck got into the SEALS, and then… Then he realized that it wasn’t a game, that he would have to do those things to other human beings and…”

“He wasn’t able to turn off the switch.” Bobby points out, and Athena wonders what her husband knows. 

“Oh, he was, he can do it just fine, he just hates it… He always said that every time he did it he would feel less human, and it took him longer to get back… So he quit… Father was furious… And now he is out there… Doing...”

With that, Maddie becomes boneless in Chimney’s arms. 

The silence falls in the room once again. Only the machines surrounding Christopher and their steady sounds can be heard. 

  
  
  
  
  


Two days. It has taken him two days to find the guys. He is rusty, which he should have known. He can only hope he will do better with the rest.

He parks the car in an alley, not too close to the barn where those men are hiding, close enough that he can walk the distance in less than five minutes and arrive without being spotted.

Once he is out of the car, he opens the trunk. There, in a hidden compartment under the fake floor, he has the gear he will need. He can choose. Guns, knives and other weapons are part of his arsenal. He caresses with reverence the bow, it was always his favorite weapon, a gift from his father. His initials are engraved on the handle, and a symbol his dad had created just for him. 

He won’t use the bow, but he takes it anyway, just for good luck. He also takes his two favorite guns he puts in their holders, a brass knuckles knife, and two smaller knives he hides under his sleeves.

It’s dark, not even the moon lightens the street. For once it seems like life is throwing him a bone.

He can see them through a window, laughing and drinking without a worry in the world. He feels his blood burn his veins. It’s the only emotion he has felt in days, and it reminds him of one of his father favorite pieces of advice, one he would repeat every time they went on a hunting trip and leave him in the middle of nowhere to find the way back by himself with only the help of a knife and a compass, and now the words resonate in his head, as if the man himself was there at his side. 

“Remember Evan,” he would start. “Rage is the only thing you can feel when you are out there because it’s the only thing you can use to be stronger. But you have to be smarter too, don’t leave the rage consume you.”

Buck checks his guns one last time. All his weapons are concealed under a big coat and it’s making him sweat, but he needs it, if nothing else, to make a big entry and catch his enemies by surprise. He counts on that, the surprise, and the way that most people don’t take him seriously. Usually, it pisses him off, but today, he is counting on it. He does some breathing exercise, to keep his focus, and then with a bang and a feral smile, he opens the door. 

They look at him, shocked and amused. As he knew it would happen, they underestimate him.

Big mistake.

“Look at that, Diaz’s boyfriend playing at being a grown up.”

“Who is playing?” Buck questions, cheeky and cheesy because that is something he would have done, in another life, another version of him.

This guy, this version of himself? He is actually playing, but not like those men expect.

“You shouldn’t have came here,” says the biggest one, the leader.

Buck smiles like the cat who ate the canary. 

He will be the last one, because sometimes Buck enjoys playing with his victims a little too much.

“Oh, but I think I should have.”

And with that, he decides to start the dance.

WIth a smooth movement, he throws his knives, ducking and rolling for cover. 

The knives hit the target with deadly accuracy, and the first guy falls with an agonizing yell after the knives make contact with his eyes.

One less.

By the time he is hidden behind the column, Buck is handling his guns.

He shoots, and two more guys fall after their knees are blown. With the power of his guns, he knows those guys won’t be walking ever again.

Time to face the big guy.

This one, he wants to get close and personal.

He grabs his brass knuckles knife and throws himself at the guy.

The first hit is a miss, the guy is ready for him and he has a knife on his own.

Buck feels the shocking pain of being stabbed, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

_ Blood thinners  _ says a voice in his head that sounds pretty much like Eddie.

He swears, and now he will have to finish this quickly.

Spinning around, Buck grabs the man’s arm with a strength nobody believes he has on him and twists it.

He loves the sound of bones breaking when they aren’t his.

The man yells. 

_ The bigger they are, the louder they scream  _ was something else his father used to say

Out of the corner of his eye, Buck sees another man trying to grab his gun so he shoots him again.

He positions himself behind the leader, both arms grabbing his neck, squeezing until the man almost blacks out. Then he throws him to the ground and starts to hit him with all the strength and hate he has in him.

The fury is overwhelming.

_ Hit… _ At the bombing that almost ended his career

_ Punch… _ At his blood, flowing with a freedom that makes him feel too weak, too vulnerable.

_ Punch and hit…  _ At the water that almost took away Christopher and all his chances for a happy ending.

At Bobby for not allowing him to get back...

At the lawyer he listened to when he shouldn’t have… 

At Eddie for getting himself in this mess …  _ kicks in the guts... _

At his father for teaching him a set of skills that has ended with him here, doing despicable things...

At himself, for enjoy it…  _ crashes the head against the hard floor… _

...he stops himself and looks at what he did.

And he loves it.

  
  
  


The house is dark and empty, and Eddie is exhausted. He wants nothing more than to sleep. He can’t, although he should.

The thing is, the doesn’t want to waste time with mundane things. He decides he only has time for a shower and pick up something to eat, perhaps he will sit down for a while and contemplate the nothingness outside his house, just something to fool his team and family into believing he has slept.

He knows he wouldn’t be able to do so even if he tried. Too worried, too hopeless.

A noise in the deep of his house gives him pause. It’s a small noise, weak and low, something that most people wouldn’t catch, but Eddie has a whole life of training to listen to the world instead of just hearing it.

He wishes he had a gun at home as his father had advised him.

There is that sound again, and this time, Eddie thinks it’s deliberate.

He readies himself for what is to come - to fight, to kill, to die.

A faint light can be seen at the end of the corridor, and Eddie realizes it’s coming from Christopher’s room. It’s his lamp, the one he uses to fight the nightmares left by the tsunami and his fear of the darkness, the monsters under the bed and lot of things that Eddie loves to ignore.

Eddie walks there, slowly and carefully, slightly ducked, and with his arms and hands in position to fight.

But there he is, Buck…

Eddie whispers the name with a mixture of reverance, confusion and disbelief.

His best friend is hidden in the shadows, playing with the faint light coming from the lamp. Buck, always the dramatic one.

“Hello Eddie,” the young man says, and it’s difficult to recognize his best friend in that tone and those eyes, so cold and distant.

Eddie studies his friend, looking for signs and clues of what he has done and where he has been, but everything is too different from the original Buck and Eddie doesn’t know what to do with all the new information

He wants to say so many things, he wants to ask and gets the answers he needs. But he doesn’t believe Buck will allow it, and even with the darkness masking half of his face, Eddie recognizes the look on his face. He is still in soldier mode and he doesn’t know why.

As if he was reading his mind, Buck answers the imaginary question.

“I caught up with the guys who did that to Christopher…”

The lump in his throat doesn’t stop him from demanding the answer to the million-dollar question.

“Did you kill them?”

Buck laughs, humorless and raw, and it’s the kind of sound that Eddie hates coming from his friend.

“No, I didn’t… But they’ll wish I did, there are worse things than death, don’t you think, Eddie?”

And with those words, Buck gets up and walks towards Eddie. Now he can see him clearly, and yet he is still a mystery. Eddie wants to think it’s a new trait of his friend, a result of some terrible tragedy that will get solved itself, but when it comes to it and Eddie is honest with himself, he realizes Buck has always been pretty much a mystery. For all his wide smiles, fluttering eyelashes and shining gazes, his past is a conundrum hard to solve, it has always been, and his sunny personality is a mask to keep the disguise.

“What should I do now?” Buck answers, and it takes Eddie longer than it should understand that the younger man wants an answer.

Suddenly, something shiny catches Eddie's eyes, and he is flabbergasted when he realizes Buck is holding a gun and his smile is turning icy, a promise of horrors to come, Eddie has no doubt about it. When Buck cocks the gun pointing at him and Eddie hears the indistinct click of the trigger, he closes his eyes and awaits the end.

“Should I kill you for getting involved with the street fighting? And then… I’d go for Bosco for taking you there, and Bobby, Hen, and Chimney for not stopping you… And the last one…” Buck’s smile widens, toothy and still full of blood, and Eddie feels physically ill when he twists his gun to point at his temple “me… for not being there…”

“Buck, please… Don’t…”

“YOU DON’T GET TO TALK EDDIE!” he yells, and it’s the first time he seems to be out of control. It’s weirdly comfortable for Eddie because this is more like the Buck he knows and less like the trained soldier - killer - who came into his house. “Do you have any idea what kind of things I had to do… I had to call my father and now, I owe him… Do you know what happened the last time I paid up to my father… Huh… DO YOU?”

Eddie shakes his head, pretty sure he doesn’t want to know, that ignorance and denial are the best options here, but Buck won’t give him that benefit, and for a moment, Eddie wonders if Buck knows the kind of devastating pain he is inflicting on him.

“Buck 1.0…”

“I don’t….”

“I had to dig so deep and turn it off for so long that I became Buck 1.0 so I could feel something, anything…”

“That is not true,” Eddie contradicts him, although contradicting Buck when he is being like this is probably one of the most stupid things he has ever done. But he can’t stay there and do nothing when his friend is in so much pain, so obvious and raw, because he thinks he can’t feel… The truth is that Buck feels, too much, too many, and perhaps too twisted and dark, but it’s there, and Eddie knows there is only one person that can help him. “Christopher is awake”, Buck blinks, once, twice, a few times, as if he was waking up from the longest dream, and maybe he is, “ and he is asking for you…” Buck shakes his head and Eddie can see he is starting to tear up. “He is asking for his Buck.”

At that, Buck breaks down. Violent sobs wrack his body, his legs fail him and Eddie catches him, holds him in his arms with tears in his own eyes.

“Eddie,” he says, and his voice is so broken and desperate that the older man’s heart shatters into thousands of tiny pieces. His arms close tighter around the younger man, holding him as if Buck would disappear into the air and shadows if he released his hold. “I’m not his Buck, not anymore,” he whispers, small and weak, but also, so sure of the truth behind his statement. Eddie wants to deny Buck’s words, telling him he is still the same man, and Eddie honestly believes that. He just thinks that the man who went against those men was a different layer of Buck, like a smaller, faintly darker and tougher doll hidden inside another Russian Doll. 

“Yes, you are, you just need to switch it back.” 

“I can’t…”

“Yes, you can Buck… You will, perhaps it will take you a long time, but I’ll wait, we’ll all wait… I promise you I’m not going away…”

“Why?” he asks, his voice full of disbelief and uncertainty. But Eddie knows the answer to that question, better than ever. In the past, he has concealed the truth, too ashamed and too afraid, but he knows it’s past the time of half-truths and half lies, he has to tell him because he has to be honest with him if he wants to fix this, to fix  _ him _ . He is terrified, and he knows, there is no coming back.

He needs Buck to understand the truth, he needs him to know he isn’t lying. So he grabs Buck’s battered, beautiful face with his two hands and affirms: “Because I love you, Buck. I love every version of you, from Buck 1.0 to Buck 1 million.0, I will never stop loving you.”

Buck kisses him, desperate and hungry. Eddie recognizes that kind of quality in his touches. It’s rough and painful, and he knows he has done the same a few times when he was back from Afghanistan and he needed to remind himself he wasn’t in the desert anymore and he was a human being - a husband and a father. He will allow Buck to do it, to use him in any way he needs and wants. 

This is Buck after all, the man he loves.

And when Buck fucks him it hurts and burns and it’s hot and his dick is hard and red... 

Buck claims him, puts his brand on him with his hands, his tongue and his teeth, and when Eddie cums harder than ever and Buck cum mixes with his own on his abs, he doesn’t regret anything. 

It’s dirty, chaotic and beautiful, just like them.

  
  


Christopher still looks too small in that hospital bed, but he is not surrounded by machines anymore and his eyes are open.

He is smiling, but it’s not wide, sunny and open anymore, it’s guarded and shy and Buck wishes he had those men in his hands again.

When the kid yells Buck’s name he does with the same enthusiasm and something akin to desperation that shouldn’t be there.

Buck hugs him and he can feel another piece of himself falling into place. He is turning back piece by piece, little by little and he thinks he wouldn’t be able to do so without his family, and especially, without Eddie and Christopher.

Eddie’s hand on the small of his back grounds him, reminding him he has a reason to be back.

He tries to ignore the looks he is getting from his family. The fear and the mistrust in those eyes, but he can’t blame them. There won’t be jokes for a while, and he knows Hen and Chim won’t nag him in a long time, probably never, they’ll always fear his reaction. It won’t occur to them that he always could have done the things they are afraid of, those skills were always there.

Her sister is different. She has always known, she isn’t afraid, she is furious because she is the only person there - besides Eddie - who can really understand the toll that it has on him.

Buck doesn’t dare to look at Bobby. He knows what he’ll find there, the disappointment that will run deeper than ever. Bobby has always been the father he wished he had, but he figures out his real father, fucked up and complicated as he is, is the perfect match for him, and probably the one he deserves.

He stays and holds Christopher the entire time. Around him, everybody talks about random things, the weather, the baseball, the Minions… Buck allows the conversation to surround him with warmth and nothingness, but after a while, he starts feeling restless, tired. He can feel the electricity under his skin and his hands start to feel empty without a gun in them.

He grabs Eddie’s hand and tries to remember why his skin is better than the cold feeling of a weapon handle. As if reading his mind, Eddie tightens the hold and pierces him with a look full of love and patience. 

It should be enough, more than enough.

He excuses himself and ignores Eddie's look of disappointment. It’s easy, he has failed so many people in his life.

He is waiting for the elevator when his phone rings. The screen doesn’t show any number so it’s easy to guess who the caller is. He picks up even though everything in him is begging him to no to and waits for his father to speak first because that is how it goes.

“Evan…”

“Father.”

“It’s done, you don’t have to worry anymore.” He is not surprised. He won’t have consequences, at least not with the law, that is something his father would always do for him if he asks him. The problem is that asking his father for help is like selling his soul to the devil.

“Thank you…” he answers and waits to hear what is the price to pay. 

“We are even.” his father says, and Buck can’t believe that, he won’t. His father would never…

“What? Am I supposed to believe that?” he surprises himself with the bitterness in his voice. He is being rude, and a small part of himself is afraid because this is his father and he knows the kind of punishment he can release when he decides someone deserves it.

“You don’t have to believe if you don’t want. I know what you did, and I know why you did it, for whom you did it… And he is family… So yeah, we are even.”

And with that, his father hangs up and Buck is left with his thoughts

Suddenly, the urgency is gone. He can feel himself relax. Another piece of himself is back and he can’t believe his father is responsible for that one. He called Christopher “family” and that makes him feel a kind of peace he has never felt before. He hopes the rest of the family - Eddie - are included in the package.

He can feel himself smile, and it’s an honest to God smirk. And when he gets back to the room he jokes, he plays with Christopher and he even gets a giggle for all his effort. Everybody is looking at him as if he was a stranger with two heads, and he can admit, he kind of is, but he feels a little bit like himself again and he has to count it as a victory.

He allows himself to believe everybody will be fine. Everything will be fine.

They’ll go back to the routine and act as if nothing happened, as they usually do. 

Carla and Christopher will recover with time, and perhaps they won’t go back to the park where everything happened because they’ll be too afraid and the memories will be too much. And if Christopher has a new kind of nightmares, well, Eddie and Buck and the rest of the family will do their best to help

Bobby will keep his disappointment to himself and he will never speak about Buck and what he did. Nobody in the station will, and Buck will be too grateful about it, so much he will learn to ignore the looks, the undercurrent fear and the lack of jokes about his intelligence and his stupidity.

Maddie will stop calling him for a while until she remembers they are family, and they love each other, and Buck has always been the way he is, a little broken, a little sharp in some edges, and too soft in others. With time, they’ll get back to the same point where they are now because what happened is hardly new for his sister.

Athena won’t say anything, though she might be the only one who will make some shady comment and Buck will allow her because he knows that she is the only one in all this mess who understands and accepts what he did And some days, she will hate him for showing her a side of herself she will be ashamed of. So Buck will help her because he shouldn’t have gotten her involved…

Eddie… Well, Eddie will simply be there, at his side, around him, on him, in him, in any way Buck will be able to have him.

And Buck… Well, he will smile, and he will keep doing his job, saving people, being a little too reckless, always too enthusiastic… He will smile, big and happy and nobody will see the other sides of him until he will release them.

After all, as his father used to tell him, _'_ __c_ an’t tame these lions inside'. _

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
